Blog: Safety Complex Updates

Week 22: High Reach Excavator Brought to Bear on C-Wing Patient Tower

This week, it's time to bring in the special demolition equipment, capable of reaching the top of a multi-story building.

Renascent crews will be using their high reach excavator - a piece of heavy machinery with a boom and arm extension - to move the take-down work at the Central Wing patient tower to the next phase. The machinery can reach upwards 120 feet, demolishing the upper floor first, then moving down in progressive stages.

This high reach excavator is being used to demolish the upper floors of the C-Wing patient tower.

This high reach excavator is being used to demolish the upper floors of the C-Wing patient tower.

"A wrecking ball is pretty much a thing of the past for a project like this, where some buildings are being razed and others are being preserved," says Jonathan Grammer, Assistant Vice President for Volkert Inc., which is overseeing the construction of the new Public Safety Complex in North Knoxville on behalf of the City.

"The demolition work is methodically slow but steady. A high reach excavator can safely and precisely do demolition from the top down."

Meanwhile, the more routine ongoing work continues as multiple contractor teams prepare the vacated hospital campus to be transitioned to a new combined facility for City Police, Fire, City Court and Pension System operations.

This week's view of the Central Wing demolition.

This week's view of the Central Wing demolition.

Cutline: Here's a view of the Central Wing demolition. Magdalen Clarke Tower stands at the left and is being converted by Lincoln Memorial University into classrooms. The Professional Office Building (center) and the Central Wing Annex (right) will be repurposed into new offices for the Police Department.

This week, Renascent crews also will be wrapping up the soft demolition in the North Wing, and NEO Corp. is doing demolition work in the bottom two floors of the Marian Wing.

Environmental Abatement Inc. is continuing its tasks on floor LL2 in the Central Wing Annex and in the Women's Pavilion - two of the buildings that are being revitalized.

Messer Construction is working this week to continue to secure the 1929 original building, which is being saved and separated from the newer Central Wing additions that are being demolished.

And BESCO is continuing to safely prepare areas for demolition. Last week, its crews focused on severing the piping between buildings being taken down and those that will remain.

Renascent last week also was busy stripping out the North Wing and McCauley Hall, while NEO completed the abatement in the Annunciation Wing.

Here are additional photos of the work on the site since last week:

North Wing, first floor

North Wing first floor interior demolition

KUB is removing a redundant power feed behind McCauley Hall at St. Mary Street

Central Wing Annex sixth floor interior demolition

Posted by evreeland On 21 July, 2020 at 2:15 PM